Tuesday, September 22, 2009

rant on trains.

Maybe don't read this post.

We were talking about public transport in Sydney today in Design Theory. As everyone knows, the train system here is overpriced, and for the amount that we are paying, we expect to be provided a good service, but the system is inefficient and pretty much...garbage. If you are a couple minutes late, you're screwed, as the next train is in 15 minutes, hence putting you further back in those long as bus queues. Just to slow things down even more, we're still using paper tickets, creating long ques at train stations and bus stops - to buy tickets and to get in and out of stations. And just in case we aren't annoyed enough, the trains close on weekends every couple of months for the past...how many years? but I guess that is for 'trackwork'... . Thought maybe my expectations are too high, but was lookin round and stuff, and came across this article: http://redracer.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/its-official-sydney-has-the-worlds-worst-trains/ guess it don't get much worse? oh wait. msia. hmmmm..

1 comment:

zi xin wong said...

It's absolutely true that public transport is worse in countries like Malaysia, but the thing is that they don't need public transport there. OK, well for people who have cars do need them, but KL is so much more of a 'car city' compared to Sydney or Melbourne. People get around in cars in Malaysia, but here, people need the public transport.

They're trying to improve the public transport system here - we're switching to a new system called Myki this year. No more paper cards! I think it's a little like the EZ Link in Singapore. You beep it everytime you get on and off, and you get to top up etc.

I can imagine how frustrating it can be to be relying on an inefficient public transport system. I'm kind of glad I don't need to deal with it :) Oh, I missed a train the other day because I was on the wrong platform hahaha what a dummy!